How shall I measure the morning
   With the gloaming relaxing its hold,
With the dew diamond-like on the roses,
   With the eastern sky glowing with gold,
While the night freshened air moves in rivulets
   Bearing perfume from new-opened flowers?
Ah, the dawn, fresh spring of renewal
   Re-endowing the soul with its powers!

But the morn is not only for beauty,
   It’s a foretaste of opportune hours.
It’s a new day of cosmic adventure,
   A vision viewed but from the towers.
It’s eternal potential encapsuled
   In the fleeting moments of time,
So the aspiring heart is enabled
   To accomplish a purpose sublime.

I shall measure the morn by its prospects,
   For more than the beauty it brings.
It reopens before us the privilege
   Of serving the Lord of all things,
For He fashions all of the mornings.
   He causes the new day to be,
Then fills it with hope and with promise
   Which faith at the dawning can see!

But many shall rise in the morning
   To another day burdened with cares,
For yesterday’s pain is persistent
   While vanished seem yesterday’s prayers.
They feel themselves mocked by the morning,
   For soon comes the heat of the day,
Then anon the inexorable dimness
   With life itself slipping away.

For them, the light is like darkness,
   The dawn an intrusion as well.
The notion that God engines nature
   Is nonsense—like heaven and hell.
Faithless, they move through the shadows,
   Thinking not that last morn soon shall be,
When the life of the world is foreshortened
   At the dawn of eternity.

Yes, there shall come a morning more lovely,
   More beautifully scented than these!
It will be the morning celestial,
   When all of the prospects shall please.
The light of that morn will be fadeless,
   When we wake on eternity’s shore,
With ne’re-ending day now before us,
   With joys that shall be ever more!

—Dave Breese